


Skating Circles Around Your Heart

by lookingfortherainbow



Series: Advent Calendar Fics of 2020 [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angry Kissing, Angry Zayn Malik, Arguing, Figure Skater Zayn Malik, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Hate to Love, Hockey, Hockey Player Liam Payne, Ice Skating, Locker Room, M/M, Pining Liam, Rivalry, Secret Crush, Winter, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingfortherainbow/pseuds/lookingfortherainbow
Summary: It was when he was badmouthing the whole team, especially Liam, to Louis one day in science class that Liam had overheard. Naturally, he began hating Zayn right back. Because god forbid someone questioned the holiness of the hockey team. Now, they were seniors. Liam was still wearing his hockey merch like he owned no other clothes, and Zayn still put as many hockey game flyers in the trash as he could when he walked through the halls. It was the natural way of things..Or, Zayn figure skates, Liam plays hockey, and locker rooms are apparently made for kissing.
Relationships: Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Series: Advent Calendar Fics of 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037256
Comments: 17
Kudos: 112





	Skating Circles Around Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I. . .tried with this one, haha. They're both a tad OOC, because I can't imagine either of them hating someone so obviously, but I tried to keep them still believable as Zayn and Liam. Anyway, I hope you like it regardless.
> 
> Also, please forgive any stupid mistakes. This is not edited.

“I just want people to shut up for _once_ about the damn hockey team!” Zayn cried, snatching the dumb flyer off of his car. 

He was in the school parking lot, his last class having finished minutes before, limbs freezing in the cold Candian winter air. 

“Dude, this school’s _only_ pride and joy is the hockey team. They’d die if they stopped talking about it. I mean, what’s worse? Hearing about how Peter and Ella got caught together in the empty classroom for the hundredth time, or about how our big game is going to send our team on their latest tournament to win another big ass trophy.”

Zayn looked at him, eyes dead. “Neither. They could talk about the figure skating team for once. We’re the ones with actual talent!”

“Your kind of talent puts people to sleep, Malik. That’s why you’ll always be bitter.”

Turning around with disgust already on his face, Zayn was met with the sight of Liam fucking Payne--fucking captain of the fucking hockey team. He was wearing grey sweatpants and a big sweater with the school’s name and mascot knitted on it, stupid hat with a stupid pom ball at the slouched end of it sitting on his ridiculous brown curls. God, hockey players had no fashion sense. 

“Oh, bitter over the fact that I’m going to compete in the Olympics one day, and your only claim to fame will be immortalized on some dumb team photo at the skate store? Sure, right,” Zayn snapped. 

“Who's to say I won’t go on to play in the NHL?”

“I am, Payne. And I’m never wrong,” Zayn said, slapping the flyer against Liam’s admittedly very hard chest. 

Jesus, the kid must work out for two hours every day to get those kinds of pecs. 

Liam was grinning wide at him, the air fogging between them, as Zayn squinted at him and shoved him again, his back against the passenger door of his own car.

“Zayn, let it go,” Louis called, exasperated as he got into his friend’s car.

Begrudgingly, Zayn listened to him. Sliding into his car, he backed out, Louis fiddling with the heat in the passenger seat. He rolled down the window to yell, “Nice sweatpants, are you _trying_ to expose the fact you have a tiny dick.”

Shit-eating grin on his face, Liam started swinging his hips in a circle. He lifted his arms, shouting, “Why were you even looking there? Are you _trying_ to expose that you like what you see?”

Slamming on the gas pedal, he sped off away from the sight. 

“Yeah, why _were_ you looking there?” Louis echoed. 

“Shuddup.”

“Kay. But that thing is _so_ _not_ small,” Louis commented.

“I said, shuddup,” Zayn grumbled, turning on the radio to Tchaikovsky. 

Yeah, so he was a figure skating nerd, sue him. At least Louis could understand his love for classical music, them being on the same figure skating team and all. 

*

The rival between him and Liam had begun three years ago when Zayn, then proudly in freshman year, had found out that the hockey team received more funding than the competitive skate club. They had to raise money every year to keep themselves going, and Zayn had shown his clear disdain for the hockey team and the players from then on. More than anyone else, Liam irked him like he'd been made by the devil and set on earth to serve the purpose of punishing Zayn for whatever wrongs he did in a past life. 

Everyone loved him, like, _everyone._ And Zayn was appalled that even his own parents dragged the family with them because they loved to go to the games to see him in action. Even Safaa thought he was hot on the ice. 

It was when he was badmouthing the whole team, especially Liam, to Louis one day in science class that Liam had overheard. Naturally, he began hating Zayn right back. Because god forbid someone questioned the holiness of the hockey team. Now, they were seniors. Liam was still wearing his hockey merch like he owned no other clothes, and Zayn still put as many hockey game flyers in the trash as he could when he walked through the halls. It was the natural way of things. 

So, it only made sense that when their small school said they--both the hockey and figure skating teams--would be doing a school fundraiser skate day with the elementary school that was attached to their high school, Zayn lost his shit. 

The whole point of it was to teach the little kids how to skate for the day. They were going to do a few cool examples of their techniques, talk about the differences between hockey and figure skating, and skate around with the younger kids. With a grim set on his lips, Zayn arrived to his school’s indoor ice rink, his eyes immediately finding the dumb pom hat that covered the even dumber chocolate curls of none other than Liam fucking Payne.

“This is all your fault,” Zayn hissed through his gritted teeth an hour later, ice skates strapped to his feet and the fundraiser in full swing.

“How the hell is this my fault? I didn't organize this!” Liam whined next to him. 

There were _so_ many small eyes blinking up at them, all standing on wobbly ankles secured in hockey and figure skates. This was the part when Liam and Zayn--voted as best skaters, therefore most qualified to speak on skating by their coaches--were supposed to talk about how great their sport was. Parents were mulling around outside the rink, a few of Zayn's classmates, who were siblings to the little ones, looking bored hung around the concessions stand, and there were a few kids crying somewhere. 

Zayn slapped him on his arm, with a gloved hand. “Start it,” he whispered, unable to tear his eyes away from the mass of eyes. 

Liam slapped him back. “You start it.”

Perhaps a tad too aggressively, Zayn pulled Liam in to his side, hissing into his ear, “I literally have public speaking anxiety!”

“That’s _literally_ not my problem!” Liam hissed back, suddenly turning his head so quick their lips almost met. 

Before, Zayn had never taken note of how pretty Liam was. But this up close, he saw why some could find him, well. . .kind of gorgeous. His eyes were bright in the fluorescents of the rink, deep brown a warm tone just like his hair. He was annoyingly perfect. 

Zayn gave him a weak punch on the shoulder. The movement caused Liam’s nose to brush up against Zayn’s. “I’m not fucking around, asshole,” he gritted out again, sweat prickling on his skin. 

Squinting at him and taking far too long to stare at Zayn’s face, Liam leant in even closer to whisper, “Fine, but you owe me. Dick.”

Abruptly, he turned to the group of adolescents in front of them. “Okay, guys, so I’m going to tell you a bit about hockey!”

As it turned out, Liam was a great speaker. Zayn could admit that, especially if it meant he wouldn’t have to start off their ‘speech’. The other boy skated around the rink demonstrating this, that, and the other. He was graceful on the ice, quick with his turns and stops. Zayn could admit that too, because it helped get his mind off the fact he had to talk soon, too. 

“And now, Malik, here, will be demonstrating how to do, um, like, an animal spin,” Liam stumbled, wracking his brain for the right word for the trick. 

“It’s a camel spin,” Zayn interrupted, irritated that he had to correct him. 

“Yeah, I knew that!” Liam insisted, crossing his eyes at him. 

Zayn ignored his immaturity and skated past him, muttering to him, “You really would if you ever paid notice to someone other than yourself.”

Once he’d executed the camel spin perfectly, he skated back to stand next to Liam. Liam whispered, “If you’d stop being angry, you’d notice that I do.”

The sassy reply made Zayn falter a bit, looking at Liam, trying to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean.

To the kids, Liam joked, “I don’t know why they'd call something so elegant such an uly name, but go figure!”

A few of the kids laughed, one yelled that they loved camels, and Zayn glared at Liam. 

“Alright, listen up, since Mister Hockey man over here doesn’t know anything about figure skating, I’ll tell you all about it! You can ask me any questions you have!”

“Is jumping on skates scary?” A little girl asked, her fingers twirling her pigtails. 

“No, you learn how to skate really well before you jump. Then when you do it, it’s just exciting!” He smiled down at her.

“Sometimes, he falls on his fanny, though,” Liam chimed in. 

The kids laughed, and Zayn whipped his head around, smile from before dropping.

“Oh, that’s rich,” Zayn snarled. Liam wiggled his eyebrows at him, grinning. Zayn turned back to the kids, saying, “Did you know that Payne has broken _three_ _teeth_ this year alone thanks to how rough hockey is?”

“No way!” A little boy cried, tone impressed. Several kids echoed the same sentiment, a few looked shocked and a little scared. 

“That’s really cool,” the pigtail girl said, looking at Liam with awe in her eyes. 

“It’s only cool if you can get them replaced with fake ones,” Liam shrugged. 

“Can I play hockey, too?” she wondered, quietly.

“Of course you can!” Liam encouraged, wide grin making the little girl smile back at him. And, sure it was cute seeing the two interact, especially since Liam and her looked a little similar what with their wild curls. Zayn wasn’t going to admit that to anyone though. “There’s a girl’s team here at our school. They kick our butts,” Liam laughed. 

“Yeah, ‘cause everyone’s better at skating than the boy’s team,” Zayn taunted, the rude words falling from his lips before he could stop them. He felt bad about it, because seeing Liam interact with the kids was taking away the agony of having to do this today. Besides, it wasn’t like Zayn liked seeing Liam get mad, it just felt natural to throw the snarkiest thought out, and Zayn never really considered how maybe it was ruining things for both Liam _and_ himself. 

“Oh, you think so? For all your talk, you’ve never challenged me in a skate-off,” Liam retorted. 

The little girl and the rest of the group of kids were forgotten as Liam skidded over the ice, bringing himself inches from Zayn’s face again. Straightening his spine, he jutted his chin out, staring Liam down. 

“I already know I’d win, so it'd be a waste of time. Unless you want your fragile ego broken. Because I can _definitely_ indulge you.”

“Oh, you wanna indulge me, Malik?”

“Yeah, Payne, I do.”

“Alright, how’s this? Maybe learn how to stop running your damn mouth all the fucking time!” Liam shouted.

Zayn didn’t notice until then that the teachers had been yelling at them, coming closer with every angsty word spoken. 

*

“This is all your fault,” Zayn stated again, face blank after being yelled at by Mrs. Collins, ass numb from the metal bench they were sitting on side by side. 

The two of them had been given a scolding in the locker room. Their principal meant business when she put on a fundraiser and she was none too happy with their language. Well, Liam’s language. Again, Liam’s fault he had detention, _not_ his. 

“You didn’t even want to be here, today,” Liam shot back.

“Yeah, maybe, but I sure as hell didn’t want the day to end this way. Now, someone from my team is doing my job that I could’ve done myself.” He rubbed his hands over his face, exhausted from the day. 

“Think of this as a lesson that you don’t always have to say whatever’s on your mind,” Liam taunted, standing up, feet now in sturdy boots. 

Zayn stood up, stuffing his skates into his bag with too much force. “Neither do you, man. If you hadn’t been making a joke out of figure skating, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“It got you angry enough to forget about your anxiety. You started engaging with the kids all by yourself,” Liam countered. 

Huh. He hadn’t thought of it like that. Still, he doubted Liam did that with that goal in mind. 

“Don’t try to screw things around and make yourself the good person here.”

“I’ve decided,” Liam stated, ignoring his whole spiel. 

Crossing his arms, Zayn glowered at him. “What have you decided?”

“I’ve decided you owe me a whole month of absolute silence. No talking to me, no talking about my team, no talking about hockey,” Liam listed off with his fingers.

“Why do you think I talk so much about you? Unlike everyone else, I’m not in love with you, Payne. I have more important things to worry about,” Zayn insisted, cocking his head as he walked closer to Liam. 

That smile was so, so infuriatingly perfect. He looked like a fucking posterboy--if you subtracted that develish glint in his eyes. 

“I think you’re obsessed with me,” he stated with a smirk.

“You wish!” Zayn crowed.

“I think you’re so obsessed with me you don’t know whether you want to kill me or kiss me.”

“As if.” Zayn rolled his eyes, standing his ground when Liam gripped his arms. 

“I think the only way to get you to stop talking about me, is to get you to start kissing me.”

“You’re out of your fucking--”

Before the last word was out of his mouth, Liam had spun them. Slamming Zayn up against the yellow, metal lockers, he gripped his coat and pressed his lips roughly against Zayn’s. Much to his own surprise, Zayn fell limp, mouth hanging open in surprise and sudden arousal. Liam sucked hard on his bottom lip, pulling on it enough to get a whimper to slip from Zayn, his breathing suddenly loud and uneven. The way his tongue was now laving over his bottom lip made him squirm in Liam’s strong hold on his coat, heat pooling in his stomach and spreading to his extremities. Desperate to regain some of the control he lost, to find some anchor, he pulled at the waistband of his sweatpants. Only that made things worse, because Liam took the action as a plea for more, pressing his half-hard groin into him and groaning like a starved animal. Zayn made an embarrassing noise high in his throat, the noise getting swallowed by Liam’s tongue artfully dipping into his mouth. 

It was too embarrassing that he was rutting back into the forceful thrusts of Liam’s narrow hips, so he retaliated by yanking that ridiculous pom hat off his curls, throwing it to the ground. His fingers carded through the curls piled high on his head, and he yanked on them, getting Liam to stop sucking hard enough on his upper lip that it was making his toes curl in his boots. 

They were both panting, staring at each other in both shock and lust and confusion. 

“What the hell was that?” Zayn breathed.

“You know for someone who’s so academically smart you sure can be so dense sometimes.” Liam shook his head at him, sorrow making a flash of an appearance on his face. 

“Huh?” 

Liam rolled his eyes. “Dude, I’ve had a crush on you since _eighth grade._ Turns out you’re a jerk that hates me with a burning passion. And even after all the insults I’ve endured over the years I’ve still kept my eye on you,” Liam confessed.

“You--I--What?” Zayn sputtered. 

Rolling his eyes again, this time with a smirk twitching at the corners of his lips, he said, “I’ve changed my mind. You owe me a date. Right now, today. After all the slander my name has taken, you owe me a date.”

Zayn could blame his stupid nodding on the fact he was feeling weak in the knees from the kiss, or that his limbs felt like jelly, and that his brain wasn’t getting enough blood because it had flooded eslewhere, but truth be told he was curious about Liam. 

So, he agreed. 

For the first time, Zayn got to see a whole side of Liam that was always there but was hidden away from him. He’d been so busy making assumptions and creating a villainous version of the boy in his head, he’d never taken notice of how cheery Liam was. 

He took him to the local outdoor skating rink, and got them hot chocolate from the warming house that they could sip on as they skated. 

Liam told him about all the times he’d watched him practice from the dark corners of the doorway at their school’s ice rink. 

“You were so quick to think I hated figure skating, just because _you_ hated hockey,that you never considered that I’ve always loved watching your team. It’s even one of my favorite Olympic sports,” Liam revealed, turning around so he could skate backwards, facing Zayn.

“You’re lying,” Zayn said, though a small smile was on his face this time. 

Liam shook that head of curls, pom hat forgotten in their locker room. Zayn liked them free a lot better. “I wasn’t lying when I said I knew what the camel spin is called. I did that to get under your skin.”

Zayn leaned forward to swat at him. “I can’t believe you!”

“Believe it, baby!” Liam laughed. 

He kept skating backwards directly into the wooden half-wall that surrounded the rink. Zayn caged him in, his hands resting on it. 

“I know the camel spin, the upright spin, the sit spin. I know you can do a lot more while flying,” Liam boasted, grinning freely now. 

Zayn could admit to himself now that the heat he felt in his chest wasn’t irritation, but admiration. 

“I’ve been to all your games,” Zayn confessed. “My parents forced me.”

“I know,” Liam replied, smirking smugly, and pulling Zayn in closer to him. “I’ve seen you in the stands looking all cute and pouty like you _aren’t_ seventeen and can’t say no to your parents telling you to go to a sports event.”

“You’re _so_ smug.” Zayn shook his head.

“You’re _so_ adorable.” Liam nosed at him. 

With a blush high on his cheeks, Zayn was the one to lean in this time. He let their lips mold gently together, taking his time to savor the feeling of Liam’s chapped lips on his own. A gloved palm slid around his neck, and Liam opened his mouth with his tongue, greedy for the taste of hot chocolate on Zayn’s tongue. 

As it turned out, truly _everyone_ was in love with Liam. Even Zayn. 


End file.
